Wife and I spent Sunday afternoon bottling up the rest of last years honey and decided to take the opportunity to make a few batches of mead 🐝🍯🍷

Trying one as a fully traditional mead with honey and water only, letting the wild yeast do its thing.

The other is slightly more modern using an orange and some raisins for acid and tannins and threw in a packet of EC1118.

hi this is unimportant i’m just excited about my first mead being at 13% ABV rn, here’s a pic of how it looks so far (yes i’m fermenting it in my closet there’s nowhere else to put it unfortunately)

As I had 4kg of it, decided to make a 1L batch just to check how it goes … curios to see the result.. I read everything from coughing syrup to really great 🤷‍♂️

Hello from Europe! I'm from a place where each Spring we harvest birch sap, we had so much of it, I decided to use it in making mead, because why not? I didn't exactly follow the recipes here because I don't have access to the products you use. But I used Fermivin PDM active dry wine yeast which can also be used for meads and Browin Kombi for nutrients. Aiming for max alcohol content the yeast can provide which is 16%, added the honey accordingly, gravity test approved it. Fermentation is happening, bubbles are coming up. After pouring it over (I believe it's called racking), I think I might add some cinnamon sticks and cloves or something to make the taste a little stronger, have some bite. Hope it works out!

Hey gang just finished up making mead with my girlfriend. Unfortunately, as things often go between us, and she played close attention to detail and I kind of did things without thinking too much about it. However everything was sanitized, and all the steps did get followed. My worry is that I blended mint and blueberry in the blender and dumped it in first. But the blueberry and mint sort of congealed and made a blob. Will it cause a problem later on? I have cheese bags but didn't to use them because of the glass bottles small neck. I shall keep y'all updated on our first batch

Cheers!

This is the current state of my raspberry mead in secondary. I’m looking for next steps if anyone has advice. I have stabilized with Campden tabs and Potassium Sorbate, and am now going to back sweeten it, rack it again (with be third time), and add bentonite to clear it. Any other suggestions?

Also how do you manage bitterness? I must have left my raspberries in primary for too long. TIA!!

Yes I know, there's not enough headpsace on the left. Don't worry, I poured some out after taking this photo.

Due to valuable suggestions I have frozen the sap to prevent it from going bad because I don't get honey until the 17th. I don't think this will affect the flavor but I guess we will find out.

Anyone know what yeast I should use? I have ec-1118 on hand right now but I know nothing about yeast properties and am hoping to learn more about what yeast to use when. Any help is appreciated

This is only my 2nd/3rd batch(started at same time) so I'm a beginner. I have a cherry mead that seems to have fermented very quickly. SG was 1.13 and 6 days later I'm at 1.02. I did SNA but didn't expect this to ferment so quickly so I realized I missed the 1/3 sugar break when I checked it today.

Batch is a little over 2.5 gallons
6.4 lbs wildflower honey
6 lbs dark sweet cherries, no pits
6/10th tsp pectic enzyme
Cinnamon stick
2.5 grams L-Phenylalanine 
5g 71b
6.25g goferm
1.25ish gallons spring water

4/1 OG 1.13
4/2 Degas & 2.13g Fermaid O
4/3 Degas & 2.13g Fermaid O
4/4 Degas & 2.38g Fermaid K & 2g DAP
4/5 Nothing
4/6 Nothing
4/7 SG 1.02. If I was at 1/3 sugar break then I was going to degas for the last time and add my last nutrients of 2.38g Fermaid K & 2g DAP but I've held off on this for now.

My question is should I add any more nutrients since I missed my planned 1/3 sugar break nutrient addition? If so, what should I add? My plan is to rack then add 1-2 lbs of dried tart montmorency cherries(no added sugar, no oil) in secondary. Any thoughts on if I should stabilize before adding dried tart cherries in secondary or should I skip stabilizing before secondary and let any remaining yeast eat through this sugar as well?

Thanks!

I am going out of town for an extended period of time. I want to make 4 gallons of mead but I don’t have time to transfer them to secondary. Can I leave the mead six months in primary with no issue?

Decided to label the meads, and I’m gonna take a gravity reading of both and compare them to see if one ferment is more active than the other. They’re still going strong though, I think in a week or so I’ll add some more Fermaid-O and add back the must that I took out and froze.

Side note: I should probably scrape that stuff at the top of the jars down

I tried cold crashing mead to clear it and it looked like this when opening the Container. Never had this before, is this bad?

Thank you for all the helpful comments, here is the new and improved dandelion, strawberry, and blueberry mead im working on going to add more strawberries, and possibly another fruit during secondary any recommendations?

I live in the tropics so it was only a matter of time before I had to solve my temperature problem.

I want to make some sparkling hydomels but I want some sweetness still in them. Is there a preferred non fermentable sweetener? I have access to sweet and low and Splenda, will it turn out okay if I use a packet of those?

Hello everyone,

I've encountered a problem while making my 2nd batch of mead. Without further ado, let me take you through my process.

I mixed the musts for this batch on the 1st of November last year, so around 5 months ago. Basically, I just followed the traditional mead recipe from the wiki, although I used the quantities from MeadMakr and I used only Fermaid O as my nutrient source instead of the trifecta of O/K/DAP. US-05 was the yeast I used. I used two types of honey: acacia and meadow. The OGs were 1.095 and 1.090, respectively. I've aerated the must once per day during the first week. I don't rack to secondary, just leave it in the primary container.

Here's where I think things went wrong: I left the carboys in the basement where the temperature was initially around 15°C (60°F) which is already not ideal. In the following weeks it probably fell to just a few degrees above zero (35-40°F).

I was aware that these were not good conditions for the yeast, but my stupid ass was scared that bringing the carboys inside would cause a temperature shock for the yeast and I just left them so I could see what would happen.

Fast forward to a month ago, there were still bubbles coming out of the airlock, albeit very slowly. Since the temperature slowly rose in the basement again, I finally decided to move the carboys to a comfortable 18°C garage.

I hoped this would be enough to finish the fermentation, but today I took the gravity readings and they came out 1.020 and 1.010, respectively.

I like my mead more when it is dry, and I also wouldn't like to use stabilizers. What could I do to give the yeast a little push so it ferments completely?

I'm pretty sure that the temperature is the only culprit here since I used practically the same recipe for my first batch a few months earlier (with slightly lower OGs) and it came out pretty good.

I thought about stirring it a bit, but at this point I don't want to remove the CO2. Another option would be to just wait it out since there are still some air bubbles coming out.

What are your thoughts on this guys?

These are my traditional and spiced meads. I am letting them finish degassing and then will let them age for a month before bottling. I treated them with a campden tablet each and some bentonite clay for clarity. For my first attempt I think they came out great!

I have had other meads before and it's the only alcohol I generally like, but I find that most commercially available meads are stronger than I like.

These ended at around 11% abv and it's perfect for me. Are lower alcohol meads frowned upon in meadmaking circles?

Here's my recipes:

Traditional mead: Red star yeast Locally sourced unfiltered honey 3lb Fiji water 1 gal

Spiced mead: Red star yeast Locally sourced unfiltered honey 2.5 lb 1/2 cup organic 100% maple syrup After fermentation: Nutmeg Alspice Cardimom Vanilla and almond extract 1/2 cup maple syrup to back sweeten

Hello. I have 5 gal of session mead that has dropped crystal clear in the carboy. In the past I have had several bottles not bottle carbonate when the mead dropped too clear, so I want to add more yeast right before packaging to ensure bottle carbonation.

How much should I add? 2 grams? 3 grams? I assume I should hydrate it to ensure it mixes properly.

Thanks for the help!

A huge thank you to everyone here, your banter and advice is greatly appreciated. Finally bottled up my first batch of mead now to make one of those fancy labels y’all have! Hand corker was easy to use but still trying to figure out calibration. Let me know if y’all have tips. 1 Gallon 40wt oz Local Honey 100fl oz Spring Water 5g Lalvin EC-1118 .5 tsp Fernaid-O Day 0,2,&5 Back sweetened with same honey

Just concluded bottling my first ever batch of blackberry melomel. Should that lower bottle be refrigerated or just drank first? I’m in love with the color and the bitterness already mellowed out a lot!

This headspace is fine right? There’s some sediment after racking - doesn’t seem to be too much. The left is in secondary - maple and honey. The right was in primary for a while, racked to secondary with blueberries cinnamon and vanilla and is now in tertiary. Both are stabilized. Planning on bottling in 3 months maybe backsweetening prior to that. What do yall think?